Sounds alright, you may think. I don’t disagree. Only problem is – I’m a girl. It’s not like my parents had run out of names when Mum became pregnant for the fourth time. All my three elder sitsters have exquisite names. My eldest sister is named Ruby, my second sister Sapphire, my third Emerald.

I was too young to know what transpired. Ruby told me much later there was a big fight. Dad got his way and I was named Son Boy. Mum wouldn’t speak to Dad for weeks. But they must have connected again, because a year later, Mum got pregnant and this time it was a boy. Dad couldn’t stop gloating for days.

“Bah, you and your English literature and your bloody English heroes. Why can’t you be more Chinese? Why all these poncey English names? You Straits-born people are weird,” grumbled Dad who was born into a Cantonese family in Gopeng and had a very Chinese upbringing and Mandarin-medium education.

The problems came on thick and fast when we reached young adulthood and my sisters started getting the attention of the opposite sex. All three of them are beautiful, I have to admit. With their names like theirs, you do get a head start in life, I suppose. I, on the other hand, was quite plain with stubborn spiky hair and lousy skin.

Ruby has thick black hair with reddish tints cascading to her shoulders, red pouty lips and sultry eyes a man could drown in. She drove all her boyfriends crazy with desire, I’m quite sure of that. She ws studying Economics at the University of London and was about to graduate and return to Malaysia when she called up one day to say she wasn’t. She had fallen in love with an Irish man, a postgraduate student in Political Science whom she’d met at an Irish bar. They planned to get married soon and wanted Mum and Dad to give their blessings.

Mum, who grew up on a diet of Barbara Cartland, Barbara Bradford and Denise Robbins during her teens, cooed with excitement. “Oh, of course Ruby. How terribly romantic. Any chance he’s a Marquis or a Lord?”

“What’s wrong with a kwei lo? And stop calling white people devils, will you? It’s embarassing. You China-born types are still suffering from the Opium Wars siege mentality or what? Ruby says Malachy is a wonderful man.”

“Oh, grow up, Husband. No one’s asking you for permission in the first place, only your blessings. It’s the eighties. It’s a different world today. We don’t have any say, we can only be there for them if things go wrong.”

Dad wrote to Ruby and threatened he would disown her if she married her Irish boyfriend. He ordered her to return home to Kuala Lumpur as soon as she finished her last course where he would reward her with a brand new BMW, a cushy job as director in one of his companies and a Rolex watch. He would introduce her to his Chinese business tycoon friends, many of whom had eligible sons who would make a good husbands and filial sons-in-law.

I cringed knowing full well the battle of wills ahead. Sure enough, Dad made life miserable for everyone at home, yelling and snarling and kicking our poor mongrel, Putih, more often than usual. After downing three glasses of Laphroaig Single Malt Scotch with tiny amounts of water one evening, he called his lawyer and announced loudly for all to hear.

The wedding photos arrived soon after – Ruby looking radiant in a white cheongsam with a posy of white roses, daisies and babies’ breath on her hair, and handsome, flaming red-haired Malachy in a Tartan kilt in charming garden setting. Mum showed the photos proudly around to her relatives who ohh-ed and aah-ed over them, while Dad sat black-faced, arms folded across his chest, scowling.

All was relatively quiet for some time. No one dared bring up the topic of Ruby’s marriage for a while till things cooled down. Then one night we were halfway through dinner when the phone rang. It was a call from my second sister, Sapphire, studying law at the University of Kent.

Sapphire was attractive in a cool, elegant and classy way, and clearly the smartest of us all. She was very well-read, a real intellectual type and extremely articulate. I couldn’t understand half the bombastic words she used. She could out-talk anyone. During her school days, she was the star of her school debating team. Consistently on the Dean’s list at university, she was a formidable scholar with beauty and brains. Dad had big plans for her to work for his company and sue anyone who dared cross him.

Mum answered the call in the second hall and was on the line for quite a long time. Meanwhile, Dad was enjoying his dinner of stir-fried veggies with gingko nuts and steamed white pomfret in soy sauce with mushrooms. He was in a relatively calm mood as his wife had finally complied with his wishes after his incessant grumbling and cooked him a ‘proper Chinese meal’. He had enough of her Nyonya curries and raging hot sambal dishes. I loved Mum’s wonderful Peranakan dishes but Dad complained they were too ‘heaty’ and gave him indigestion.

Mum came into the kitchen with an inscrutable expression and said, “That was Sapphire. I have good news and bad news, Husband. The bad news is she has broken up with her childhood sweetheart, Lum Ah Kow.”

Dad tried to persuade Sapphire to dump her Affrican sweetheart and return home ASAP with promises of a fully-payed deluxe condominiium in Mont Kiara, a Mercedes S-class series, a country club membership and two Rolex watches. She didn’t even have to work for the first year if she didn’t want to.

Sapphire sent home her response in a long letter to Dad using such complicated, polysyllabic words even Dad and Mum gave up trying to understand her theories on the meter… er meta… metaphysics of physical attraction and the divee… er… divinity of love, juxtaposed with the transit… er… transient nature of material wealth. She also enclosed a photocopied article entitled something or other than bondage, about petty… er… petra… patriarchy and the female condition. Dad could not fathom a word of it.

All eyes were on Emerald now. Arthur and I were still too young to get entngled in this girl-boy business. I didn’t even dare tll anyone I was having a crush on a senior school prefect in my all-girls’ school –tawny tanned Rozita, ace discus and javelin athlete and long distance runner.

Dad wasn’t that sure, I think, because he refused to send her to the United Kingdom for further studies. Instead, he sent her to the National University of Singapore. Plenty of ‘normal’ bachelors there, I heard him pronounce triumphantly while Mum rolled her eyes in disgust.

Emerald did not protest unfairness. She was a sweet, gentle girl, always laughing, very manja, the touchy feely type who loved soft toys and Mozart and cried over sad movies. Sentimental like Mum, she was quite happy to be near home and did not like to stray too far from her comfort zone. She loved animals and wanted to pursue a course in Veterinary Science but Dad told her there was no future in taking care of animals in this country and she was persuaded to switch to Biochemistry instead.

After her first year at university, I sensed something was wrong when she didn’t call home anymore or come back for quick visits over long weekends. Then one day, a letter came in the mail from Emerald, addressed to Mum. I got to hear the contents when Dad came home from work.